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Syria?

The player that we’ve heard from the least in the Middle East of late, is Syria.  So, I was interested when a BitsBlog reader forwarded a report from Reuters:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) [1]– Syria is facing a violent campaign by Islamist militants and six border soldiers died in attacks launched from inside Iraq, a senior Syrian security official said on Thursday.

This is the first time Syria has publicly disclosed details of the fight against militants, which has intensified this year.

“We are conducting operations against terrorist cells and we have taken martyrs,” Mohammad Mansoura, head of the Political Security branch of Syria’s intelligence apparatus, told a closed door session of an international security conference on Iraq.

“Raids have yielded arsenals of weapons including suicide explosive belts. Our border forces have come under 100 attacks from inside Iraq. Six soldiers died and 17 were injured,” he said in a speech obtained by Reuters in a translated copy.

Obviously, the emphasis added use my own. Here, I was of the impression that such attacks only occurred in countries that the U.S. has invaded.  Clearly, the anti war left as this one wrong.  Dead wrong.

Frankly, I am not convinced that these attacks are coming from inside Iraq.  I am convinced, rather, that these are Syrian based militants who, upon finding resistance to high in Iraq, came back across the border, because the pickings were easier in Syria.
Syria is usually very tight lipped about such matters, so much so that this admission from them is startling, to say the least.  I don’t think they’re telling us the whole truth, as to where these attacks are coming from, but the news here is that the remaining they have a problem. If After so many years of silence and they are ready to do that , it’s not only a damned serious situation, it’s probably critical.

On the second page of the report comes an even more interesting statement… one which will doubtless raise the hackles of those who have been claiming that Mr. Bush has been acting unilaterally in the region, and that we are making no progress:

Officials from Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Britain and the United States ended closed talks aimed at coming up with security cooperation measures to help stop the violence in Iraq and attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The conference concluded with a call to set up intelligence hotlines with Baghdad and take practical measures to stabilize Iraq, delegates said.

It’s hard to imagine how even the most even the most frothing at the mouth Bush Derangement Syndrome victim can conclude that Bush is acting alone, and that no serious progress is being made in the region.

As to the actions of the insurgents driving into Syria, I think I should point out, and I’ve been saying all along that the insurgents were coming to Iraq from inside Syria.  Indeed, that long line of trucks leaving Iraq, on the day prior to the invasion was headed guess where… Syria.

I have suspected for a long time that if things got difficult enough in Iraq for these Syrian based insurgents, that they would eventually turn against their hosts.  I must say, that part of me is not displeased by these jackals turning on Assad, after he hosted them for years.

It seems clear that what is happening, here, is that the militants are going after low hanging fruit.  Assad is now willing to deal with the rest, in order to prop himself up against the rush of Islamofacism. Apparently, like our own 9/11, having your country are rated by such people is still an effective means of focusing one’s attention on what matters.

Tell me again, how things are not turning around in that region.